Ladies and Gentlemen our economy is going down the tubes. I've been saying this since the February and finally the poo is hitting the fan. The reason why I'm posting this here and not some political site or on cnbc somewhere is because I think the government has been giving false data so the population doesn't go into a panic.

Ill do this by 2 steps one telling you why I think the economy is going in the tubes and 2 telling you why I think people are hiding info. Ill start with the reasons.

Reason 1 in the past 10 wages for the top 3% has gone up close to 20% while the other 97% wages have gone stagnant. I feel thats off because the people on capital hill have voted for wage increases 7 times since then. Voted for one minimum wage increase. Hmmm.

Reason 2 energy prices have soared over the past 10 years. Gas, Oil, Natural Gas, Electricity...and so on and so forth. I think it was 10 years ago i was paying .89 a gallon for gas now Im at 3.25.....its odd cause yet without this minimum wage increase people would have to work an hour just to pay one gallon of gas.

Reason 3 the dollar is tanking and it is only going to get worse. Especially now that China (Our great friend in the east..NOT!!) has come out and said they will be dumping our currency...we all knew this was coming. I dont think I need to explain what a weak dollar does as far as the negatives if you need me to let me know...but I will say on the flip side it does help exports but overall a weak dollar is not good for the economy.

Reason 4 Food and housing prices have soared Im not going to go into to much details on this but hopefully with this crappy housing situation we are in now we will see some nice corrections on the housing prices.

Reason 5 alot of our industry jobs are being sent over to china and alot of our customer service jobs are being sent over to India. This causes alot of good paying jobs to go somewhere else. Most of the big corporations do this I dont need to list names but Im sure if you have looked on a toybox you will see where it is made or if you have called for customer service you have got John Smith with an Indian accent.

Reason 6 The credit crunch is for real. I just filed for a line of credit for my business we are opening another location and was denied. I have a credit score of close to 800 and very little debt so if they arent approving me who the hell are they approving for loans and loans are what small businesses need to grow.

I have more reasons buy I'm starting to run out of space so I want to get into why I think the government is giving disinformation. I think they are giving false job reports and other important info because they dont want the truth on how crappy the real economy on main street is doing. They do this because there will be a huge sell off in equities and confidence will go to zero and we will jump right into a depression which i personally think we are a few % on the unemployment to that point. Im just saying this to everyone because I think everyone needs to be prepared. When our economy hits the crapper a great opportunity for a country like china will show itself and I wouldnt be surprised to see them come over and take a shot at taking us over. That aside depressions are not a good thing feeding your family is. Just so you know where I get this info I own an investment company not going to plug it and I deal with this on a daily basis. I know I will get alot of disagreements but alls Im saying is be prepared.

Must agree with what you have said. Thank you for being another one of the few who state the obvious, while everyone else is in stuck on "duh" like its another Hyundai sales event. Star for you bud!

Speaking for somebody in the metal fabrication part of business, work for us is down, has been getting slower and slower over the past few years. I work on screw machines, lately the work for those has been so slow, you can't sell the things anymore, warehouses are full. Most of our steel contracts are gone, we make by on aluminum. Most of the folks not in my job area may not feel it, white collars fair better.

Nice OP, yes here in ATS is many of us following the many devious ways that our government is using to keep the American people far away from the problems that our nation is in.

Yes like everything figures can be manipulated and play with even sugar coated to keep the illusion that everything is fine and dandy.

But the truth is just there for anybody that have eyes to see and add one plus one on their own and ears to heard what the old market gurus have been warning about.



[edit on 17-12-2007 by marg6043]

reply to LighinDarkness

By the way, if the government is simply lying on all their economic indicators it would be the end of America's social institutions as you know if it were ever to be exposed. Trust - a key component of a healthy business economy - would be shattered. It would take tens to hundreds of years to recover. Which is why I doubt the government would ever do this - after all, destroying your economy with false information when your found out only impacts the governments tax revenues in a negative way.

The check is in the mail. Yes indeed, the check is in the mail.

All Federal Reserve notes issued after 1964 are illegal under Article One, Section Ten of the U.S. Constitution.


[edit on 12/18/0707 by jackinthebox]

Originally posted by RuneSpider
Speaking for somebody in the metal fabrication part of business, work for us is down, has been getting slower and slower over the past few years. I work on screw machines, lately the work for those has been so slow, you can't sell the things anymore, warehouses are full. Most of our steel contracts are gone, we make by on aluminum. Most of the folks not in my job area may not feel it, white collars fair better.

I would have though a business like that would increase its exports with the dollar being so low.. but what do I know of metal fabrication business?

One thing I HAVE noticed this year.. and much to my liking because I live right next to one.. is mall traffic is down substantially! .. I mean, its empty compared to what it should be. I can actually get a parking space up close for one, stores are not packed by any means .. to me this could be a sign that the worst part of the economic numbers will come out in the next quarter when retailers post substantial losses due to low consumer spending.

Or maybe every one is shopping online because of gas prices, but believe it most likely people won't be spending as much.

LiD:

I would find it very unlikely that the government can "fake" numbers with that many people and that many levels of government involved. Finally, if government was faking numbers, why would they show any negative numbers at all - ever - why not just spoof the entire economy?

The Federal government, and more importantly the Federal Reserve cannot exactly fake numbers.. but they CAN and HAVE held the stock markets propped up with buy out systems, stocks drop, Fed picks them up so as the market is not shocked. The other aspect of this is in the past 8 years after the dot com bust and 9/11 interest rates where so obscenely low that banks and loaners over used and over loaned. All of this has lead to a high inflation .. and while the Federal Reserve would indicate that inflation is "lower then average" taking into account that the US Dollar has dropped almost 25% since 2001 alone should speak volumes.

So while they cannot exactly fake numbers, they can manipulate it easily, and they do.

There is inherent in this assumption some sort of connection between minimum wage and economic prosperity. Only 520,000 of a 200+ million work force gets paid the minimum wage. How is it that raising it is going to create any real impact on the economy?

Double edged sword.

By not raising the minimum wage and with the devaluation of the dollar leading to increasing cost of living in such a short period of time, increasing prices of oil by 100% from 2001 alone takes up a good portion of a minimum wage earners salary.. eventually the live to work to drive to work. The economy left them behind because for so long no one bothered to raise it..

However.. once it was raised, the US STILL did not see a significant or even normal rise in Middle Class salaries. The number of millionaires went up 11.8% in 2006 while in 2006 the Middle Class reached its breaking point, leading to the 2007 financial melt down and real estate bubble bursting.. millions more are going to tarnish what little credit they have and loose their home.

And with the minimum wage raising this January I believe is when most state officially change, the price of average goods will eventually rise to the equivalent of what the minimum wage once was, making everyday items even more expensive on the Middle Class, and the lower class..

Actually, inflation adjusted prices for oil are steady.

Not at all.. from 2001 - 2007 the price of gas at the pump has risen over 100% .. on top of that the oil companies shattered every record for profits over any industry in history .. and the government brought in record taxes off it as well. The adjusted price for the 1970's oil crisis would have been almost $88 a barrel .. I think we passed that a while ago no?

China has only threatened to reduce their holdings of US debt. It was merely a political thread in an attempt to gain some political capital - which failed. China has yet to reduce its holdings of US debt.

China's biggest oil importer is Iran, who has officially stopped exporting in American Dollars, and instead chose Euros.. China is dumping certain amounts of American debt and reserves for Euro reserves.. Since China also imports energy from Russia, it also has to diversify in Rubbles since Russia also is now refusing American Dollars. Japan as well had to start building up Euro reserves for energy needs.

Currently China's biggest economic partners are India and Europe, Europe is set to out pace the US's economic investment within a few decades, relieving China of a one nation survival plan, diversifying its investments.

I do agree that the Dollar is in an economic cycle, but I also believe the Fed has and is doing everything to make sure the cycle does not take its natural intended course.

Housing prices have soared, and are now falling. Consumers were in a state of irrational buying and the house market gravy train is now ending.

Man, the rate that houses inflated their prices .. its insane. Luckily for America it was not an American problem .. the problem is actually far worse in some European countries like the UK and Ireland. Ireland for instance, a house in the 1990's that would have cost 70k now cost over 400k Euros.

Outsourcing has been going on en masse since the early 1990's. Is there any evidence to show that this somehow creates a huge impact on the economy now? I do not find any evidence for that.

I find the insourceing of personnel to be an even bigger problem. We outsource jobs, we create high tech jobs, we then import scholars from around the world and saturate our own markets like the IT industry with Indians, Chinese, Japanese etc. Essentially we don't want to pay hard workers good wages, and we don't want to employ our own educated people for high tech jobs, because again, they cost to much.

I have no doubt that a subprime credit crunch is real. But this does not indicate any sort of recession.

I think it could easily build into a recession .. not a depression, but a recession for sure. We have seen the markets slow and industry fall over time, and this holiday season may turn out to be proof that consumers cannot consume like they used to .. a driving force in our economy. Consume, consume, consume.

I know all people are getting from me is a card.